The Wild Honey Collective formed in the summer of 2020 to perform original songs and traditional American folk music. Singers and songwriters Tommy McCord, Danielle Gyger, Timmy Rodriguez, and Dan O’Brien, joined shortly thereafter by pedal steel guitarist Adam Aymor and drummer Joel Kuiper, launched the project in rural Michigan as a back porch acoustic gathering purely for the love of music in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rootsy and unassuming beginning of the band led to the immediate recording of the 2021 The Wild Honey Collective: Volume 1 full-length debut album, which Local Spins described as having “its feet firmly rooted in classic country and folk while daring to allow its head to explore the technicolor clouds of psychedelia.” The 12-track The Wild Honey Collective Volume 2 album (July 2022), the 7 track “mini-album” Chicory (September 2023), and the 12-track Volume 3 (May 2024) all followed, each building on the foundation of original and traditional music set by the debut album, with an added sense of energy brought on by steady touring in the Midwest and beyond. Since first performing live in June 2021, The Wild Honey Collective has performed over 200 shows at a range of Michigan music festivals including Wheatland Music Traditional Arts Weekend, Smiling Acres, Forest Trail and Fallasburg Arts Festival, as well as venues spanning the tip of the Keweenaw peninsula to the coast of Maine. The Wild Honey Collective is ever-evolving (with a variety of “collective” collaborative projects in addition to the core band activity) and encompasses sounds of traditional string band music, rowdy country rock, psychedelia, classic pop and more to preserve and nurture the lineage of Cosmic American Music.
